Letters
by AyaEnnui
Summary: The bed is large enough for two, and for that Lili is grateful. AU


Lili Zwingli wakes up to a yellow ceiling, and a foul smell, and a freezing draft coming in from the window above her, where it's presumably been open all night.

_Goddamnit_, she thinks, thickly, sourly, because her mind is too foggy with sleep to form anything more articulate, and it expresses in a nutshell the whole of her emotional spectrum right now.

She closes the window, first, slams it shut with an audible thud, then cleans up the cat's mess, and eyes the ceiling longingly while pouring cereal into a cracked blue bowl because it's ugly and lumpy and everything she's ever hated in a ceiling, but it's too expensive to change for a college student scraping the bottom of the barrel just to pay for college and living fees.

It's worth it, though. When she's finished and has her diploma she can go out and do anything, everything she wants, and she won't have to change the ceiling, she'll move out of the damned ramshackle apartment.

Today's a Saturday and while she really should be studying, the morning air is cool and crisp and the sky cloudless and the outdoors, looking lovely in its thin attire of fog, is beckoning to her, so she pulls on her socks, dons her sneakers, and heads out for a jog.

The neighborhood is nice, it teems with trees and squirrels and little white and red birds that flit from branch to branch and peck at one trunk after another, and she thinks maybe it's the kind of place she'd like to live in one day.

When she comes back she's sweating and her shirt's sticking to her back, but she feels rejuvenated, better than when she was blearily wiping up Pete's mistake, better than she's felt in a long time.

She checks the mailbox by the gate, hoping, and this time she's not disappointed, a letter's come through.

It would be easier, she had argued with Lien, if she would use a cell phone, or laptop, or modern day method of communication, but Lien had always refused. She was a country girl, through and through, and although she accepted the world's modernization without protest, this was perhaps her only, tiny little rebellion against the age of technology.

And Lili accepts that as one of her quirks, but she misses Lien, misses the soft feel of her skin and mellow voice, and the smoothly crinkled paper in her hands only stabs at the hollow ache in her heart.

She waits until she's inside to open the letter, so neatly sealed, and take out the paper with fumbling, trembling hands. Then she reads it, trying not devour the substance too quickly but it's difficult not to consume everything at once, hungrily, eagerly.

The script is small, and flowing. Everything is fine and proceeding as usual, nothing's changed in the small town they met in, and the small business Lien's family owns, that she now works in, is growing steadily.

It's trivial, mundane, nothing at all, but it quickens the pulsing of Lili's heart.

She tries to laugh at herself as she snatches a paper and a pen, putting the nib down too hastily and snubbing it, _Lili you are such a hopeless romantic_.

Then she writes, and tries to think of anything exciting, anything to tell Lien, there's really not much except college life progressing as it always has, soldiering through tests and papers and studying and professors.

She writes about some of the stranger professors she's met, a quarrelsome Brit with an uncanny insight into literature, shy Williams whose voice mounts to a roar when scribbling out formulas, and pretty Héderváry who seems entirely too enthusiastic when delving into sexual Freudian theories.

_Doing well_, and then, as an afterthought, _Write back soon_.

Then she seals the envelope, licking it carefully, and sends it off.

The reprieve was a short one, and she will be counting off the days, waiting anxiously, until a response arrives.

~~~0~~~

There is a surreal quality about today, that Lili can hardly believe it; she gazes, uncomprehendingly, at the fireworks shooting up into the sky and exploding, bursts of light and fire erupting into countless tiny stars.

Shooting stars, the thought drifts through her mind, didn't she wish, once, as a child, for this, her dream, to come true, and now it has?

To some of the young men and women here this graduation ceremony means nothing, just a transition from one stage of life to the next, or perhaps simply a reason to get drunk and celebrate. But there are a few, like her, who understand the magnitude of today and are awed by it, because from where they came from today was a nigh unreachable dream.

A dream, Lili thinks, almost deliriously, a star, but she's touched it, it's come true, and now she can do anything and go anywhere and she's _free_.

And now, suddenly, she knows where she wants to be, and it's not here. It's not with Lien, either, not yet, because there's another stop she has to make first.

So she takes off her hat and walks away, gets in her car and drives, beyond the blinking lights of the bright city that never sleeps and pulls into a smaller, dimmer town, for the first time in ten years.

~~~0~~~

A long time ago, this town used to be cleaner, and livelier, and its inhabitants even entertained hopes of distracting business and attention away from their larger neighbor and swelling into a suitable city.

Such aspirations must long be gone, as is every sweet and attractive quality of the town, and now nothing is left but cracked, dilapidated buildings and suspicious, peering vagrants.

Suddenly a wave of unease washes over Lili. Why had she come, now, so impulsively? Hadn't she promised to stay away, forever, to never come back?

Too late to turn back now, though, so she presses on, lips thin and white and pursed and brows knitting together to form a swirl of wrinkles.

The woman who lived in that house, tall and regal and spiraling, was a kind matron and used to treat her to cookies, and the old man there all the kids called crazy and baited and one time broke his window. And then, the last one.

Lili stomps on the brakes and sits there, motionless, for a few moments, her hands clenching and bloodless on the wheel, until finally she gets out and walks to the door.

She hesitates again, and then she rings the bell rapidly, with abandon, hardly daring to see who opens, half hoping it's a familiar face and half hoping it's not.

The door swings open, and it's a sullen, elderly lady who answers, staring at her hostilely, a bag of wrinkles and bones.

There is relief, and disappointment, and sorrow, all at once, and then Lili backs away, babbling:

"Sorry, ma'am, wrong house, sorry."

The old woman frowns, then slams the door shut.

Lili drives away, and this time she's heading straight for Lien, to that old pretty quaint little town, and before she knows it she's crying, eyes blurring as she drives, wiping at the tears that streak down her cheeks, everything bottled away for twenty years seeping out, out, out.

~~~0~~~

The old shop is a faded but primly kept rectangle near the outskirts of downtown, where the flow of pedestrians thins out but is not entirely dispersed. Adjacent to it is a small abode, humble and comprised of necessities and a few luxuries, and there Lien chooses to stay in the few hours she isn't manning the shop.

The bed is large enough for two, and for that Lili is grateful.

~~~0~~~

Sunlight streaks through the cracks in the shutters and stripes Lien's face, make it glow. Lili is awake, but still tired, and, propped up on an elbow, is content to merely watch the shifting, breathing chest, the strand of hair curling over the nape of Lien's neck.

Lien is almost always up first, bustling and busy at the crack of dawn. It's an old habit, one she's cultivated and never lost ever since she moved in from the countryside.

Lili is glad for this delay, this opportunity to catch and enjoy the moment, to savor it while it lasts.

She sinks back onto the pillows, nestles closer to Lien, enough to feel her warmth but not to disturb her, and sighs.

Nothing lasts forever, but like this, she can almost believe it'll never end.

~~~0~~~

Through the town winds a small canal, clear and unpolluted through the town's greatest efforts, and across it runs a slender white bridge, looking almost slender enough to snap like a twig.

Lien is squatting down, the modest brown fabric of her dress billowing around her, and watches the current pass sluggishly by.

She seems content to stay like this forever, as if she can see something fascinating and beautiful no one else can, but Lili, sitting beside her, has grown impatient. She's never understood Lien's intimacy with nature, and would gladly exchange its dull intricacies and methodical slowness for the excitement of city life.

She tugs at Lien's hand. "What are you looking at?"

Lien is silent, then she says, patiently and deliberately, "The water."

"I know," Lili huffs, "but what are you _looking_ at?"

"It's beautiful."

"What?"

But Lien has closed up, and is no longer willing to tend to Lili's inquiries. So they sit there, longer, until finally she reluctantly gets to her feet.

"The sun is setting," she says, helping Lili up. "It will be cold, soon."

Lili grins. "Finally. Come on, let's go."

~~~0~~~

In a corner of the room lies a dresser, shrinking and dusty and obsolete, and in the lowest, darkest drawer, beneath several layers of old albums, is a musty picture.

And it is buried, but not forgotten, it is hidden with a carelessness deliberately forged.

It shows the story of a man, a woman, and a young girl, and if one looks closely enough one can see the girl's smile is taut and forced, black half-moons drape under the woman's eyes and her pretty, young face is lined with wrinkles, and the father's grip on the both of them is just a little too tight.

~~~0~~~

The sleeves of her shirt, whether it is warm or cold, are always long, to hide the scars and escape the questions.

Lili stands, fresh out of the shower, and rakes her hair with her hands. The scars, white and long and stretching, are a part of her now, an ugly part, but integral nonetheless.

It could have been worse, she knows, she could have been killed by one of his drunken rages, she could have still been trapped under him today.

And she's been asked if she regrets it, if she misses him, and other crude, insensitive questions by crude, insensitive assholes who ask these things without giving a fuck as to how she feels or how she's supposed to respond to these kind of things, and she never answers, just walks away.

I don't miss him, she wants to say, seething, I don't regret anything, not a single moment not a single day and the bottom of a graveyard is the only place I want to see him.

It still hurts.

She stares at herself, naked and bare and skinny in the mirror, then slips into a bathrobe and gets out the hair dryer.

She doesn't know what she was expecting, the other day, with that stunt she pulled. Sometimes, though, she wonders, and can still find enough love in her withered heart to wish her mother well, in death or life.

She puts a smile on her face, and adjusts it until it's convincing, and puts away those thoughts for another time.

The world is crazy and unpredictable and _dangerous_, and she's given up on trying to sort it out, so she clings to Lien and knows, as long as she can hold on, she won't be swept away by everything, overwhelming, consuming.

She just needs to hold on.


End file.
